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In The N 



IGHT 



BY 



WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D. 



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IN THE NIGHT. 




WILLIAM MCTTAYLOR, D.D., 

Minister of the Broadway Tabernacle^ N. Y. 



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SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 



" Who giveth songs in the night.' 1 — Job xxxv. io. 

There is a peculiar charm in music 
by night. When darkness has settled 
over the face of nature and the moon- 
light sleeps upon the waters, and all 
sounds are hushed in silence, the song 
of the belated traveler or the chorus 
of the cheerful company falls upon the 
ear with special sweetness. 

Something of this may be due to the 
surrounding stillness ; and perhaps also 
the element of unexpectedness may 
tend to heighten the delight. But how- 
ever we may account for it, we all rec- 
ognize the fact, that there is in music 
that comes to us through the darkness 

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Songs in the Night. 

a certain power, which we miss, even 
when the same sounds are heard by us 
in the day-time. The night is the fitting 
framework of melody. We may not 
go the length of her who is made by 
the great dramatist to say — 

The nightingale if she should sing by day ; 
When every goose is cackling, would be thought 
No better a musician than the wren. 

But we must all admit that music, 
always sweet, is specially effective in 
the night. When it is wished to show 
honor to a great man, or affection to a 
good one, we serenade him with " the 
touches of sweet harmony." And so 
it is a peculiar tribute of love to God 
when His people sing to Him out of the 
darkness of their troubles. For, over 
and above the melody they make, all 
the inspiration of their song has come 
from Him, and that which they have 

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received from Him in blessing, they are 
giving back to Him in praise. 

Even as early in the history of the 
world as the days of Job, Elihu, as we see 
from our text, recognized it as one of the 
special excellences of God, that " he 
giveth songs in the night." Any man 
can sing by day, but only he whose heart 
has been tuned by the gracious hand 
of Jehovah can sing in the darkness. 
The things of earth may satisfy for the 
hours of prosperity, but only the peace 
of God can give gladness in the dark- 
ness of adversity. God gives joy in 
sorrow, and when the sad one sings 
through his tears, then the Lord comes 
out to him with new and more tender 
assurances, so that by his very hymn 
he is made more gladsome. That 
which is born of trust rises into rap- 
ture. This is the thought of Elihu. 

But I want to-day to show you from 

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Songs in the Night. 

the treasures of our sacred song how 
true His declaration is ; and if at the 
close you may feel that I have con- 
tented myself, for once, with bringing 
together the words of others, having 
nothing of my own but the string on 
which they are threaded, I am sure 
that you will also feel that the ex- 
periences they rehearse are yours. For 
as one has admirably defined a proverb 
to be " the wit of one man, and the 
wisdom of many/' we may equally de- 
scribe a hymn as being the genius of 
one Christian and the experience of 
many, and therefore we may find 
profit and consolation and support in 
speaking a little of these songs, which, 
through the agency of others, God has 
given to us in the night. 

THE LITERAL NIGHT. 
I begin with the literal night. Have 
you ever stopped to think what must 



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Songs in the Night. 

have been the feelings of the first man, 
when at the close of his first day of 
life he saw the sun apparently dis- 
appear from the heavens and night 
descend upon Paradise ? How he must 
have been smitten with bewilderment ! 
And as the stars came out " one by 
one at first, then ten by ten," what 
must have been his thoughts ! We are 
so accustomed to the sight of the 
evening sky, " this majestical roof fret- 
ted with golden fire," that it is to us' 
now no more than a thing of course ! 
But then it must have filled the heart 
of the observer with awe, rising up at 
length into admiration ; and when he 
learned to worship the Creator, his 
loftiest strains must have been those 
that celebrated the glory of the archi- 
tect of the stars. 

A modern poet has put this thought, 
with a beautiful application to the night 

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Songs in the Night. 

of death, into a sonnet, which Coleridge 
considered the finest and most grandly 
conceived in the language, and I can not 
refrain from reproducing it here : 

Mysterious night ! when our first parent knew 
Thee from report Divine, and heard thy name, 
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
This glorious canopy of light and blue ? 
Yet 'neath the curtain of translucent dew, 
Bath'd in the rays of the great setting flame, 
Hesperus, with the host of heaven came, 
And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
'Who could have thought such darkness lay 

concealed 
Within thy beams O, sun ! or who could find, 
Whilst fly and insect stood revealed, 
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us 

blind ? 
Why do we then shun death with anxious 

strife ? 
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? 

But leaving out of view for the mo- 
ment this very suggestive application 
of the revelations of the night, we can 

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Songs in the Night. 

readily understand how it came that 
man's earliest idolatry was the wor- 
ship of the heavenly bodies, and how 
among those who retained their faith 
in the one living and true God there 
were few strains of adoration loftier 
than the hymns which they raised to 
Him "who counteth the number of 
the stars and calleth them all by their 
names." 

Even in this book, probably the 
earliest in all literature, no appeal is 
more searching and sublime than that 
addressed by Jehovah to the patri- 
arch in these words : " Canst thou 
bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or 
loose the bands of Orion ? Canst thou 
bring forth Mazzaroth in his season ? or 
canst thou guide Arcturus with his 
suns? Knowest thou the ordinances 
of heaven ? Canst thou set the do- 
minion thereof in the earth ? " * 



* Job xxxviii. 31-33. 



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Songs in the Nig Jit. 



So again we recognize a peculiar 
majesty in the description of Amos, who 
as a herdsman was perfectly familiar 
with the phenomena of the night, when 
he says : " Seek him that maketh the 
seven stars and Orion, and turneth the 
shadow of death into the morning, and 
maketh the day dark with night ; that 
calleth for the waters of the sea, and 
poureth them out upon the face of the 
earth : the Lord is his name." * 

But it was David who first gave voice 
to the silent homage which the firma- 
ment of stars is constantly rendering to 
God, when he sang : " The heavens de- 
clare the glory of God, and the firma- 
ment showeth his handywork. Day unto 
day uttereth speech, and night unto 
night showeth knowledge. There is 
no speech nor language. Their voice 



* Amos v. 8. 
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Songs in the Night. 

is not heard ; their line is gone out 
through all the earth, and their words 
to the end of the world." * 

And it was from the same genius, sanc- 
tified and inspired by the Spirit of God, 
that we have the appropriate meditation 
of the devout astronomer : " When I 
consider thy heavens, the work of thy 
fingers, the moon and the stars which 
thou hast ordained, what is man, that 
thou art mindful of him, and the son of 
man that thou visitest him ? " f 

In an age like this, when philosophers 
are so engaged with things which they 
can measure with their lines, and weigh 
in their balances, and when in the pride 
of their hearts they are deifying the 
law which they have discovered, to the 
contempt of Him whose power sustains 
the law in operation, it were well for 



* Psalms xix. 1-3. 



t Psalms viii. 3-5. 



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Songs in the Night. 

us to make ourselves familiar with these 
" songs in the night." There is no get- 
ting round the question of the great 
Napoleon, when standing on the deck 
of a ship at midnight, and overhearing 
the arguments of his atheistic officers, 
he said, pointing to the stars : " That 
may be very true, gentlemen, but who 
made all these ? " Professor Mitchell 
said once to a friend as he was putting 
the key into the door of his observa- 
tory, in which he was about to spend 
the night in the contemplation of the 
stars : " Whenever I enter this place 
an emotion of awe comes over me. I 
feel as if I were going into the presence 
-of the Infinite." Would that all our 
men of science were pervaded by that 
spirit, and then their researches would 
but add new strophes to our hymns of 
worship ! 



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Songs in the Night. 

SONGS IN THE NIGHT WATCHES. 

But night brings fatigue to man, and 
with that a longing for repose, while, 
again, its darkness and silence are fit 
harbingers of sleep. And what a 
mystery there is in sleep ! It is un- 
conscious. It is helpless. And yet 
withal it is the recreator of body and 
brain, so that if it be denied us, the 
loss is either the forerunner or the 
consequence of disease. Now each of 
these characteristics produces in us a 
corresponding emotion. When we 
think of the unconsciousness of slumber, 
we feel our need of protection ; and 
when we remember that sleep is essen- 
tial to our well-being, we have a longing 
for repose ; while there are few things 
more dreaded by us than weary wakings 
in the midnight watches. 

These are common experiences, and it 

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Songs in the Night. 

is not wonderful, therefore, that pious 
men of genius have set them to the 
music of their verse. Listen to David, 
as, before lying down in the tent which 
was now his only covering, and uncertain 
whether his unnatural son might not 
attack him before morning, he takes 
his harp and sings : " There be many 
that say, Who will show us any good ? 
Lord, lift thou up the light of thy 
countenance upon us. Thou hast 
put gladness in my heart ; more than 
in the time that their corn and their 
wine increased. I will both lay me 
down in peace and sleep, for thou, 
Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." * 
Hearken again, as he sojourns in the 
wilderness a fugitive from Saul, and 
fills the night with his music : " My 
soul shall be satisfied as with marrow 



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Songs in the Night. 

and fatness ; and my mouth shall 
praise thee with joyful lips ; when I 
remember thee upon my bed and med- 
itate on thee in the night watches." * 

Or if you will have another illustra- 
tion, come join with me the caravan of 
pilgrims on their annual journey to 
Jerusalem. The day has been hot and 
dusty, and every one is worn with 
fatigue, but after the tents have been 
pitched and the evening meal has been 
taken, and just as the shades of night 
are falling on the encampment, the 
beautiful song of degrees is taken up, 
and the mountain echoes repeat the 
melody of many voices as they chant : 
" He that keepeth thee will not slum- 
ber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel 
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The 
Lord is thy keeper ; the Lord is thy 

* Ps. lxiii. 5-6. 

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Son^s in the Night. 

shade upon thy right hand. The sun 
shall not smite thee by day, nor the 
moon by night." * 

Nor let it be supposed that such 
strains as these are confined to ancient 
times. The faith that inspired them 
lives in us, and where God has given 
the genius with the faith, similar songs 
have been sung by modern saints. The 
evening hymn of Bishop Ken is familiar 
to us all ; and John Keble has written 
nothing more tenderly beautiful than 
the lines beginning — 

" Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear, 
It is not night if Thou be near." 

But you may not be so well acquaint- 
ed with Ken's third hymn — that for the 
midnight — and therefore I will repeat 
one or two of its verses here : 

" Bless'd Jesu ! Thou on Heaven intent, 
Whole nights hast in devotion spent ; 



* Ps. cxxi, 3-6. 
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Songs in the Night. 

But I, frail creature, soon am tir'd, 
And all my zeal is soon expired. 

" My soul, how canst thou weary grow 
Of antedating bliss below, 
In sacred hymns and heavenly love, 
Which will eternal be above. 

" Shine on me, Lord ! new life impart, 
Fresh ardors kindle in my heart ! 
One ray of Thy all-quickening light 
Dispels the sloth and clouds of night. 

" Lord, lest the tempter me surprise, 
Watch over Thine own sacrifice, 
All loose, all idle thoughts cast out, 
And make my very dreams devout." 

Less known even than that of Bishop 
Ken is the sweet hymn of Philip Dod- 
dridge, written during his own last ill- 
ness, and while he was nightly expect- 
ing his decease. I can not quote it all, 
but I will give you enough to whet 
your souls with eagerness to find it for 
yourselves : 

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So Jigs in the Niglit. 

What though downy slumbers flee, 
Strangers to my couch and me? 
Sleepless, well I know to rest 
Lodged within my father's breast. 

While the empress of the night 
Scatters wild her silver light, 
While the vivid planets stray 
Various through their mystic way ; 

While the stars unnumbered roll 
Round the ever constant pole, 
Far above those spangled skies 
All my soul to God shall rise. 

' Mid the silence of the night 
Mingling with those angels bright 
More harmonious voices raise 
Ceaseless love and ceaseless praise. 

Through the throng His gentle ear 
Shall my tuneless accents hear ; 
From on high He doth impart 
Secret comfort to my heart. 

1 He in these serenest hours, 
Guides my intellectual powers; 
And His spirit doth diffuse, 
Sweeter far than midnight dews. 
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Songs in the Night. 

" Lifting all my thoughts above 
On the wings of faith and love, 
Blest alternative to me, 
Thus to sleep or wake with Thee." 

Very similar in spirit to these last 
lines are the words of Sir Thomas 
Browne in his Religio Medici, which he 
thus introduces : " Sleep is so like 
death that I dare not trust it without 
my prayers and a half-adieu unto the 
world ; " and then he gives a little 
poem of which this is the conclusion : 

" Sleep is death ; oh, make me try, 
By sleeping, what it is to die ! 
And as gently lay mine head 
On my grave as now my bed. 
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me 
Awake again at last with Thee ; 
And thus assured, behold I lie 
Securely or to wake or die." 

Then he quaintly adds : " This is the 
dormitive I take to bedward ; I need 

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Songs in the Night. 

no other laudanum than this to make 
me sleep ; after which I close mine 
eyes in security, content to take my 
leave of the sun and sleep unto the 
resurrection." We may not have the 
genius of these gifted men, but we may 
have the faith which led their genius 
in that seraphic direction ; and by 
possessing ourselves of their words we 
may by the ladder of their music climb 
upwards to the tranquillity of their 
trust. 

THE NIGHT OF AFFLICTION. 

Thus far I have been speaking only 
of the literal night ; but in the Word of 
God, as in our common speech, the 
darkness is a metaphor for affliction 
of whatever kind, and it is delightful to 
see how for every trial God can give a 
song. This is amply verified in the 
case of David, many of whose finest 

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Songs in the Night. 

psalms are his serenades to God from 
out the night of his affliction. Read 
over again in your closets the cave 
psalms, numbered 31st, 54th, 57th, and 
I42d in the Psalter, and you will see 
how, sustained by his unfaltering trust 
in God, he wrestled his way, singing as 
he went, through the darkness into the 
light. In that last named, indeed, there 
is, as I have elsewhere said, much of that 
" rapid stroke as of alternate wings," 
that " heaving and sinking as of the 
troubled heart," which Ewald has so 
aptly described as the essence of the 
parallelism of Hebrew poetry ; while 
in the closing strophe the faith which 
underlies the whole prayer comes forth 
" like a daisy emerging from the grass, 
and opening its petals to the morning 
sun. The night had made it bend its 
head and covered it with dew-drops ; 
and now as it lifts itself up to greet the 

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Songs in the Night. 

dawn, the tears of the darkness have 
become the diamonds that encircle its 
crimson-pointed coronet." * 

It is this feature of David's songs 
which has led to their universal appro- 
priation by the suffering and afflicted 
among the people of God. They have 
been chanted by the early Christians in 
the darkness of the Roman Catacombs, 
and by the humble martyr as he went 
to meet the lion on the arena of the 
crowded amphitheatre. They have 
been sung by prisoners in the dun- 
geon, and by reformers at the stake ; 
by Covenanters on the wild Scottish 
moorland, and by Malagasy Christians, 
beneath the canopy of night, and amid 
the plashings of the rain-storm that 
made their voices inaudible to all 
save God ; and that which made them 



* David, King of Israel, p. 134. 
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Songs in the Night. 

helpful to men in these manifold ex- 
periences was the fact that they were 
" songs in the night." For the tried 
believer trusts God in the darkness, 
and he will welcome any words of 
others which may make articulate for 
him the faith which he can not at the 
moment express. 

The Lord Himself fortified Himself 
for Gethsemane by singing a hymn 
with His followers after supper ; and 
Paul and Silas not only kept up their 
faith, but also increased their joy by 
singing at midnight in the prison of 
Philippi. It is well, therefore, to have 
the memory stored with these psalms 
of David, which have been the solace 
and support of God's people in every 
age, and excellent as our hymn-book 
is, its one defect to me is that it con- 
tains so few of David's gems. 

But in our appreciation and appro- 



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priation of the psalmist's odes, we 
ought not to forget the songs which 
God has given us through the trials 
and genius of many modern believers. 
Are we in the night of sorrow? then 
what can be more soothing than such 
lines as these, written by one over the 
bier of his dead child ? 

" With our best branch in tenderest leaf, 

We've strewn the way our Lord doth come ; 
And ready for the harvest home 
His reapers bind our ripest sheaf. 

" O weep no more ! there yet is balm 
In Gilead ! Love doth ever shed 
Rich healing, where it nestles — spread 
O'er desert pillow some green palm. 

" God's ichor fills the hearts that bleed, 
The best fruit loads the broken bough ; 
And in the wounds our sufferings plough, 
Immortal love sows sovereign seed." * 

Or perhaps we wish to attain to sub- 



* Gerald Massey. 
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Songs in the Night. 

mission under affliction ; then we may 
find a pathway formed for us in the 
stanzas of our own Whittier, which, 
according to his testimony to a friend, 
were born out of the uttermost anguish 
of his heart : 

" I ask not now for gold to gild 

With mocking shine a weary frame ; 
The yearning of the mind is stilled, 
I ask not now for fame. 

" But bowed in lowliness of mind 

I make my humble wishes known ; 
I only ask a will resigned, 
O Father, to Thine own. 

"" In vain I task my aching brain: 

In vain the sage's thought I scan, 
I only feel how weak and vain, 
How poor and blind is man ! 

•*■' And now my spirit longs for home, 
And longs for light whereby to see, 
And like a weary child would come, 
O Father, unto Thee." 

Perhaps the affliction is of a tem- 

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Songs in the Night. 

poral sort, and you are in straits for 
bread, then you may find an ancient 
song in David's ode : " I have been 
young and now am old, yet have I 
never seen the righteous forsaken, or 
his seed begging their bread ; " or if that 
be too far away, you may have a mod- 
ern echo of it in George Newmarck's 
hymn, composed by him when earthly 
things were at the ebb with him, and 
beginning thus : 

" Leave God to order all thy ways, 
And hope in Him whate'er betide ; 
Thou'lt find Him in the evil days, 

Thy all-sufficient strength and guide. 
Who trusts in God's unchanging love, 
Builds on the Rock that nought can move." 

But what need I more ; the time 
would fail me if I were to attempt to 
bring up before you the martial lyric 
written by the gentle Anne Askew, 
while she lay in Newgate prison on the 
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Songs in the Night. 

night before her death as a witness to 
the faith ; or the hymns of Madame 
Guyon, as she turned the Bastile into 
a place of song, from which her bird- 
like notes came forth shrill and loud, 
to the profit and delight of Christians 
the world over. But having had occa- 
sion recently to refer to Richard Baxter, 
whose life was one long martyrdom, I 
will indulge myself with quoting now 
from the well-known lines in which he 
alludes so beautifully to the support 
and hope of the believer : 

" Christ leads me through no darker rooms 
Than He went through before ; 
He that into God's kingdom comes 
Must enter by this door. 

" Come, Lord, whose grace hath made me meet 
Thy blessed face to see ; 
For if Thy work on earth be sweet, 
What will Thy glory be ? 

" Then shall I end my sad complaints, 

And weary, sinful days ; 

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Songs in the Night. 

And join with the triumphant saints 
That sing Jehovah's praise. 

" My knowledge of that life is small, 
The eye of faith is dim ; 
But 'tis enough that Christ knows all, 
And I shall be with Him." 



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Nor can I forbear reminding you of 
that sweet lyric which has come through 
the centuries singing of " Jerusalem, 
my happy home," and of which the 
earliest known manuscript copy has 
been found by Dr. Bonar in the British 
Museum, marked with the initials F. 
B., P., which have been interpreted as 
Francis Baker, priest, who was a pris- 
oner in the Tower, and whose cell 
became for him an observatory for the 
contemplation of that celestial abode 
on which his heart was fixed. His 
song was the favorite at the Scottish 
fireside, in the time when many were 

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Songs in the Night. 

called to resist unto blood, striving 
against sin, and has been made the 
vehicle of devout aspiration alike by 
peer and peasant, in the cathedral and 
in the conventicle ; but never was it so 
truly a song in the night as when it 
came from that prison-house, from which 
so many have been taken to mount 
the flaming chariot of the martyr. 

THE NIGHT OF DEATH. 

But there is a night of death, and for 
that also God gives a song. One can 
hear music in Paul's glowing words, 
though they form the conclusion of a 
wondrous argument : " Then shall be 
brought to pass the saying that is 
written, Death is swallowed up in 
victory. O death, where is thy sting? 
O grave, where is thy victory? The 
sting of death is sin, and the strength 
of sin is the law ; but thanks be to 

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God, which giveth us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ."* To 
the same category belong all the Easter 
Hymns of the Church, but from the 
necessity of the case, these are all gen- 
eral in their character, and as we are 
seeking to-day for those which are the 
expression of a personal experience, I 
know not where I can find one better 
suited to my purpose, than that which 
was written by Henry Francis Lyte, 
in the immediate prospect of his disso- 
lution. Consumption had laid its un- 
relaxing grasp upon his frame ; and 
he was about to go to Italy for relief, 
but before he went he wished to preach 
once more to the people. It was the 
communion Sabbath, and he had 
strength at the close of his sermon to 
say : " Oh ! brethren, I can speak feel- 



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ingly, experimentally, on this point ; 
and I stand here among you season- 
ably to-day as alive from the dead, if 
I may hope to impress it upon you, 
and induce you to prepare for that 
solemn hour which must come to all, 
by a timely appreciation of dependence 
on the death of Christ." This was 
his last appeal. Then, after having dis- 
pensed the sacred elements to his 
flock, he retired to his room ; and as 
the evening drew on, he handed to a 
near relative those lines which have 
cheered so many, even as they cheered 
himself: 

" Abide with me, fast falls the even-tide ! 
The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide. 
When other helpers fail and comforts flee, 
Help of the helpless, O abide with me." 

I need not quote more ; you know 
them well, and have doubtless often 
marked, as I have, how by degrees he 

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rises — lark-like — while he sings until 
the night has ended, and he greets the 
day with these enraptured words : 

" Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain 

shadow's flee ; 
In life and death, O Lord, abide with me." 

THE VALUE OF THESE NIGHT SONGS. 
Now, why have I brought these 
specimens of Christian hymnology be- 
fore you to-day ? Principally for these 
reasons : First, I want to show you how 
faith's anchor holds in every time of 
storm. When we cast that within the 
veil and fix it on the throne of God, we 
are not proceeding on a venture. 
There is no perhaps about it ! We 
have not to say: " Who can tell whether 
it will break or not ?'' We have seen it 
tried and proved in the experience of 
others, and that which kept them will 
surely hold us. Thus the testimony 
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which has accumulated in the shape of 
songs of trust and triumph ought to 
make it only the more easy for us to 
believe. As David said in his day, 
'* The word of the Lord is tried," so we 
may say in ours, with the added em- 
phasis, which is warranted by the ex- 
perience of God's saints, during these 
three thousand intervening years. We 
have no excuse for unbelief, with such 
songs ringing in our ears. Therefore, 
all ye tempted, tried, and troubled ones, 
let the music of these hymns charm 
out of your hearts the evil spirit of 
distrust, as under their influence you 
cry, " Lord, I believe ! help Thou mine 
unbelief." 

But I wish, secondly, to show you 
the importance of making yourselves 
in some degree familiar with the songs, 
both ancient and modem, which God 
has given to His people in the house 

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of their pilgrimage. I presume not, 
indeed, to place the hymns of our 
modern Christians on the same level 
as the psalms of David. For the 
Spirit of the Lord spake by the son of 
Jesse as He does not now by any man. 
But still the utterances of sanctified 
genius, are full of help and comfort, and 
we do ourselves a wrong if we do not 
make ourselves familiar with them. 
Therefore, among the books which I 
would have you place upon your closet- 
shelf next to the word of God, I would 
recommend some good selection of 
sacred poetry.* If you can get no other, 
then take our own hymn-book, which 
is richer in excellence than you may 



* For this purpose I would recommend 
"Christ in Song," edited by Dr. Schaff ; " Songs 
of the Soul," edited by Dr. S. I. Prime, and 
the excellent little books, entitled " The Changed 
Cross," and " The Chamber of Peace." 
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Songs in the Night. 

think for, until you have examined it. 
And when you have discovered one 
hymn that is specially applicable to 
your circumstances, commit it to mem- 
ory, that you may have it ready for 
every emergency. If half the diligence 
should be shown in learning and singing 
these sacred songs, which many mani- 
fest on music and poetry of another 
sort, the profiting would appear in our 
spiritual growth and comfort. 

Nothing has so stirred the heart of 
Great Britain for many a day, as the 
story of those buried miners in the 
Welsh colliery, and the heroic efforts 
of their deliverers. Amid all the ex- 
citement of European politics, and 
with a declaration of war between 
Russia and Turkey daily imminent, the 
nation held its breath until the fate of 
these men was decided, and from the 
Queen on the throne to the poorest of 

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Sojzgs in the Nigh' . 

the people, there was one loud shout 
of thanksgiving when they were brought 
out of their living tomb. Yet how 
were these men engaged when the wel- 
come tappings were heard which gave 
them the first hope of release? One 
of themselves tells that they took fare- 
well of each other, and then sang a 
well-known hymn in Welsh, of which 
the following is a translation :• 

" In the deep and mighty waters, 

There is none to hold my head, 
But my only Saviour, Jesus, 

Who has suffered in my stead. 
He a friend, in Jordan's river 

Holding up my sinking head ; 
With His smile I'll go rejoicing 

Through the regions of the dead." 

What a support must that hymn 
have been to them ! Teach your chil- 
dren hymns, then. Let the singing 
of them be a part of your home- 
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Songs in the Night. 

life ; for by so doing, you will lay up, 
both in their hearts and in your own, 
treasures whose value may appear after 
many days. 

Again, when you see a 'hymn that 
touches you in any ephemeral publi- 
cation, copy it and keep it, against the 
night that may come upon you. When 
you are weak and desolate the bring- 
ing of it out may give you peace. 
Not many days ago, when I visited a 
bereaved brother, he told me that his 
dying sister during the night before her 
departure asked a friend to go to a 
place where she kept her treasures and 
to read to her a hymn which she would 
find there in manuscript. It was that 
which was found under the pillow of a 
soldier who was lying dead in an hos- 
pital near Port Royal, and though 
doubtless known to many of you it will 
bear repeating here : 

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Songs in the Night. 

" I lay me down to sleep, 

With little thought or care, 
Whether my waking- find 
Me here or there. 

" A bowing, burdened heart, 
That only asks to rest, 
Unquestioningly upon 
A loving breast. 

" My good right hand forgets 
Its cunning now ; 
To march the weary march 
I know not how. 

" I am not eager, bold, 

Nor strong — all that is past : 
I am ready not to do, 
At last, at last. 

" My half-day's work is done, 
And this is all my part ; 
I give a patient God 
My patient heart." 

" And grasp His banner still, 
Though all its blue be dim, 
These stripes no less than stars 
Lead after Him." 

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Songs in the Night. 

It soothed her to hear them, for they 
expressed the deepest feelings of her 
soul ; but O ! how unspeakably com- 
forting to those around her, that she 
had thus laid up for herself her conso- 
lation against the time of need ! 

THE MELODY OF THE LIFE. 

But now to bring our review to a 
close, let me not forget to add that the 
music in all these hymns which is so 
dear to God, is not in melody of line 
or sweetness of rhythm, but in the faith 
and hope and love that throb beneath 
the words ; and though we may not 
have the genius that is needed to make 
a poem, we may have the piety, the 
trust, the patience, and the peace, 
which are the true " songs in the night." 
Let us hold fast by Him who supported 
these sweet singers; and let us be 
assured that the very clasping of Jeho- 

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vah's hand by the weary and wayworn 
believer, is itself, in the estimation of 
God, a holy hymn, a song rising up to 
him out of the night and making a 
deeper impression in his heart because 
of the silence and the darkness out of 
which it emerges. The poetry is not 
in the verbal expression of the song so 
much as in the experience which it 
sings ; and if sometimes there is a pow- 
erful prayer in the falling of a tear, be 
sure there is as often a sacred song in 
the light that flashes from the grateful 
eye, or the smile that irradiates the 
happy countenance of him who is look- 
ing unto Jesus. Let us then go through 
the world clinging to Christ in all un- 
varying experiences, and though we 
may not be able to write psalms, our 
lives shall be each a whole book of 
hymns, rising gradually up to that 

" undisturbed song of pure concent, 

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aye, sung before the sapphire throne 
with saintly shout and solemn jubilee." 
" Worthy is the Lamb that was slain 
to receive power, and riches, and wis- 
dom, and strength, and honor, and 
glory, and blessing." 

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